


Window to the Past

by PetalsToFish



Series: Canon Compliant Jily [16]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Canon, Canon Compliant, F/M, Father Figures, Loss of Parent(s), POV Remus Lupin, window to the past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:41:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29890959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PetalsToFish/pseuds/PetalsToFish
Summary: Professor Remus Lupin finds Harry Potter admiring a certain portrait and entices the young boy to go for a walk. Harry is certain Lupin merely feels sorry for Harry since he is unable to leave the castle and keeps fainting in the presence of dementors, but there is more to the older Professor than meets the eye. Harry quickly learns that Lupin is the closest connection to his parents that he's ever had.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Series: Canon Compliant Jily [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2199819
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30





	Window to the Past

The photographs lined the hall, going all the way back to when Hogwarts was first founded. Harry hadn't even been looking for it, not really. He'd stumbled on the hallway while looking for divination. Ron hadn't noticed Harry's falter in step, no one did. Every student raced through the hall without taking a second glance at the faces in the portraits.

Everyone but Harry.

Harry had to wait for the end of the classes to retrace his steps. He might've been in his third year at Hogwarts but he still hadn't seen every dark hallway or explored every dusty crevice. The hall below the divination chambers was no exception. With its flickering candles and wooden framed portraits of student faces, it almost felt like Harry was entering another dimension.

Each photograph was of the Head Boy and Head Girl each year since Hogwarts had been founded. Harry supposed most students already knew if their parents were featured on the walls of Hogwarts. Harry, however, lacked the parents or relatives to tell him such stories. Harry searched high and low until he found them. They were settled between the years 1977 and 1979. 

He examined the girl first, eager to find the traces of resemblance to Harry in her eyes that so many people talked about. She was leaning on the boy's arm and looking up at him like he was the brightest star in the night sky. Her dark hair almost looked brown until light from Harry's wand was cast over the shadowed frame. Red and gold strands lit up in the dark like fire and her eyes, green as a bottle, turned their attention on him.

"You?" He whispered, eyes fluttering to the boy at her side wearing a Head Boy badge and grinning triumphantly, "and him?"

They didn't answer, they only waved. It was almost worse than looking into the Mirror of Erised when he was eleven. Then, the mirrored images showed his parents a little older than twenty. The two students in the frame were children, just like Harry. Lily Evans' face was rounder than Harry had ever seen it. James Potter's hair was the messiest pile of curls that Harry hadn't even imagined his hair could get too.

They both wore Hogwarts clothes with their Gryffindor scarves wrapped around their necks. Whoever had taken the photograph, had taken it outside amongst a snowy backdrop. Harry watched as his father bent down to grab a handful of snow and shove it into his mothers face. This portrait was a flash of the past as Harry heard his mums laugh for the first time.

The magic on the portrait wasn't strong, so all Harry could hear were echos. It was little bursts of laughter and gentle teasing from the framed portraits. Harry realized he laughed like his dad. Loud, boisterous and full of love. Lily's laugh was hyena-like as she shoved snow in James' face. Harry gave a soft chuckle, earning the portrait's inhabitants attention again.

James Potter wiped snow from his glasses before the pair resumed their normal positions, side by side. Her hair was falling over one shoulder and he had an arm tossed around her waist. Harry thought his dad looked elated to be standing at Lily’s side, as if he was meeting his favorite quidditch player and not his future wife. Lily had an upturned smile that added an alluring glow to her shiny disposition. It was almost like she was stuck in a permanent state of laughter, while James was trapped in an aura of childish giddiness. 

"Harry, what are you doing down here alone?"

Harry's face shot away from the portrait of his parents to find Professor Lupin walking towards him. Professor Lupin's eyes grew dark when he saw what Harry had been staring at. The two people in the portrait perked up and waved at the older Professor, almost as if they knew him. Professor Lupin turned away from the portrait, almost painfully, to face Harry.

"Would you like to go on a walk?" Professor Lupin asked.

Harry looked back at his parents, dead in real life, but living in the photograph. Professor Lupin placed a strong hand on Harry's shoulder and turned Harry away from the photograph. They walked side-by-side down the dark hallway, Professor Lupin leading the way back down to the main castle floors. They walked out onto the grounds, still damp from that morning's rainstorm. Harry wished he were in Hogsmeade with everyone else but Professor Lupin was okay in company.

"I used to walk this same route every morning with my best mate." Lupin pointed down the path they'd started outside, "he loved the morning, spent most of it flying before classes."

Lupin told several stories on their walk, as if he could tell Harry had other things on his mind. Harry occasionally glanced over at his Professor, working up the courage to ask why Lupin never let Harry participate with the boggart in class last week. It wasn't as if Lupin knew that Harry had been inside staring at a portrait of his parents. Lupin probably assumed Harry was upset about the Boggart.

"Professor, can I ask you something?"

Lupin drew his hands behind his back as they stepped up onto the bridge that led back into the castle. "You want to know why I stopped you fighting the boggart that other day? I would have thought that was obvious. I assumed that if you faced the boggart, it would assume the shape of Lord Voldemort."

Harry sighed and leaned against the railing overlooking the drop down into the gulch that fed the Great Lake. That hadn't been exactly what Harry was going to ask, but it was a question he'd been pondering, so he glanced at the other wizard expectantly.

"I did think of him at first. But then I remembered that night on the train. I thought of those dementors." Harry heard his mother’s piercing scream again, an opposite reaction of life from the girl inside the castle.

Lupin knotted his hands together on the railing and overlooked the gorge too. "I'm impressed, Harry. That suggests that what you fear most of all...is fear. Very wise."

"Before I passed out on the train, I mean-I heard something." Harry swallowed, "A woman. Screaming."

Something flickered in Lupin's light eyes. "Dementors force us to uh, _relive_ , our worst memories."

"Why?" Harry furrowed his brow.

Lupin paled as he said, "our fear becomes their power."

Harry once again thought of the laughing and smiling woman in the photograph. He thought of how happy she'd been, not knowing the future was set in stone for her to be a martyr.He thought of his father, wondering how James Potter dealt with the final seconds of life, knowing he was never going to be with Lily ever again. 

Harry turned his bottle-green eyes on Lupin as he said bluntly, "I think it was my mother, the night she was murdered."

Lupin's jaw twitched and his fingers curled into fists on the post. The professor leaned up and off the wood, as if reliving some of his own worst memories, whatever they might be. Lupin drew out his wand and started fiddling with it, quietly. Harry leaned beside him miserably, wondering if maybe he ought to have kept his misery to himself. Lupin was only being friendly, Harry didn’t need to tell him anything so terrible. Harry was about to try and cover up with a bluff when Lupin spoke up out of the blue. 

"You know the very first time I saw you Harry, I recognized you immediately, and no," he added when he saw Harry flatten his curls over his scar, "it was not the scar. It was your eyes. They're your mother, Lily's."

Harry's eyes shot up to find Lupin looking at him considerably forlorn. Lupin's expression looked torn between sadness and fondness. Questions poured into Harry's mind as Lupin sighed and pushed against the bannister, looking much older than he had before.

"Yes," he answered Harry's silent question, "I knew her. She was fearless, and cheeky, especially when it came to your father. She stood up for muggleborns and outcasts alike. Exactly as you'd imagine her to be. She was...an uncommonly kind woman."

Harry felt his mouth flicker up as he thought of the photograph of them in the hallway, a forgotten time capsule of his parents. Lupin seemed to be remembering them fondly because he didn't speak again for another minute.

"She had a way of seeing the beauty in others, even, and perhaps most especially, when that person couldn't see it in themselves." Lupin spoke fondly of them, as if he’d known their every secret and hobby. "Your father, James, however, had a certain, shall we say, talent for trouble. A talent, rumor has it, he passed onto you...along with his hair. He'd be so happy to know you look like him and followed in his footsteps with quidditch. Even if you are a seeker."

Harry thought of the boy tossing snow with the girl in the pictures and how they'd waved at Lupin when he fell to Harry's side in the hallway. "Is that why that portrait of them waved at you? You were their friend?"

"They were two of my very best friends." Lupin admitted, a tear stained his cheek.

"Do you think I can talk to the portrait."

"Portrait magic is dependent on the caster," Lupin explained, "that portrait is casted to do no more than wave at passerby."

Harry admitted, "I just want to talk to them."

"I was there the day that photo was taken, you know." Lupin gave a bitter sort of laugh, "they'd both gotten Head Boy and Girl, respectively. Professor McGonagall took the photo while we--I mean while _I_ made fun of them in the background."

Harry wondered if he'd make Head Boy, like his father. He wondered if he'd grow up to be as fondly remembered as his mother. Harry took a deep breath, just remembering them both as they were in the painting: young and carefree. He wanted to remember them like that, always, for whenever the dementors came around again. Lupin touched his shoulder to wake him up from his inner monologue.

"Your father was there for me at a time when no one else was, and your mother was one of my dearest and oldest friends." Lupin's eyes grew softer and kind. "You're more like them then you know, Harry. In time you'll come to see just how much."

Harry rolled his fingers together as he asked carefully, “do you think--do you think they’d be proud of me?”

Lupin looked choked up for a second before he said firmly, “we’re all proud of you, Harry.”

“But I can’t beat the dementors.” Harry said, “everytime they get around, I faint.”

“We can work on that.” Lupin squared his shoulders, “I can help you.”

“Really?” Harry perked up, “you aren’t too busy to help me?”

“I am never too busy to help you, Harry.” 

“And what about fainting?” Harry asked worriedly, “I don’t want to hear my mum or dad dying again, Professor.”

Lupin’s face turned even more pallid as he reassured Harry, “I promise you that you will never have to relive that pain again, Harry.”

“But what if I do?” Harry asked anxiously. 

“I’ll do exactly what Lily would do, if the roles were reversed.” And then Lupin promptly pulled Harry into a very tight hug.

Harry, who had grown up without hugs from any parental figure, froze like a deer caught in headlights. Lupin only hugged him harder, seemingly determined. Slowly, Harry relaxed and put his arms around the Professor. Lupin waited for Harry to let go first, before uncharastically ruffling Harry’s hair affectionately. 

“Come on,” Lupin said, “let’s go get some tea.”


End file.
